A Cavern of Black Ice Read Online Free PDF

love and respect to the man who was her
foster father and surlord.
    Sixteen years ago, before he took the
title of surlord for his own, Penthero Iss had found her outside
Vaingate. She was a newborn, a foundling abandoned within ten paces
of the city gate. All such foundlings were considered Protector's
Trove. Iss had been Protector General at the time, in charge of city
security and defenses. He had patrolled the Four Gates, led his
red-bladed brothers-in-the-watch, and commanded the forces that
manned the walls.
    Ever since Thomas Mar had forged the
first Rive Sword with the steel and rendered blood of the men who had
betrayed him at Hove Hill, no protector general had ever been paid
for his work. For centuries protector generals lived off income from
their grangeholds, inheritances, and land grants. Today there was no
land left to grant, and more and more baseborn men were joining the
Watch, and protector generals now gained income by other, less noble
means. Contraband goods; swords of illegal length or blade curvature,
arrows with barbed tips; prohibited substances such as sulfur,
resins, and saltpeter that could be used in making siege powders;
unlawfully produced liquor, poisons, sleeping drafts and pain
dullers; ill-gotten gains; anything found in the possession of known
criminals; and all goods abandoned within the city—whether they
be crates of rotting cabbages, fat pigs broken loose from their
tethers, or newborns left to die in the snow—were the protector
general's to do with as he saw fit.
    Protector's Trove had made Penthero Iss
a rich man.
    As if guessing her thoughts, Iss
brought his lips close to Ash's ear. "Never forget,
almost-daughter, that during my commission I came upon dozens of
foundling babies, yet you were the only one I chose to raise as my
own."
    Ash tried, but she couldn't quite
stifle the shiver that worked its way down her spine. He had sold the
other babies to the dark-skinned priests in the Bone Temple.
    'You are cold, almost-daughter."
Penthero Iss' hand, with its hairless knuckles that never cracked,
glided up Ash's arm and along her shoulder. His fingers prodded the
flesh of Ash's neck, testing for warmth, blood pulse, and swollen
glands.
    The urge to shrink away from his touch
was overwhelming, but Ash fought it. She didn't want to provoke Iss
in any way. If she needed any proof of that, all she had to do was
look at the three blind bolt holes in the fossilwood door.
    'Your blood is racing, Asarhia."
Iss' hand moved lower. "And your heart…"
    Unable to stand it any longer, Ash
jerked back. Iss grabbed hold of her nightgown and twisted the fabric
in his fist. "You've been having the dream again, haven't you?"
She didn't answer. Threads of muslin in her nightgown were laddering
under the pressure of his grip. "I said
haven't you
?"
    Still Ash made no reply, but she knew,
she just
knew
, that her face gave her away. Her skin flushed
with every lie.
    'What did you see? Was it the gray
land? The cavern? Where were you? Think.
Think
."
    Shaking her head, Ash cried, "I
don't know. I don't know. There was a cavern lined with ice…
it could be anywhere."
    'Did you see what lay beyond?" The
words left Iss' mouth like frost smoke, sparkling blue and utterly
cold. They hung in the air, cooling the space between Ash and her
foster father, making it difficult for Ash to breathe. Ash saw Iss'
lower jaw come to rest. She heard saliva smack inside his mouth.
    'Father, I don't understand what you
mean. The dream was over so quickly; I hardly remember what I saw."
    Penthero Iss blinked at Ash's use of
the word
Father
. Sadness flitted across his face so quickly,
she doubted she'd seen it at all. Slowly, intentionally, he showed
his gray-cast teeth. "So it has come to this? Lies from the
foundling I raised as my own."
    Rare were the times when Iss showed his
teeth. They were small and positioned well above his lip line. Rumor
had it that a sorcerous healing practiced upon him when he